Blog posts

No sooner is the ink dry on the G8 communiques than leaks begin to appear suggesting that the debt cancellation deal announced by the finance ministers is under threat. The BBC are reporting that a memo has been leaked to the Jubilee Debt Campaign (as yet there is no news on the JDC website) indicating that the Belgian government is likely to try to block the agreement when it comes before the IMF’s board. ...

Sometimes I can’t stop myself from banging my head against brick walls. Today’s impact was a response to this piece in the Florida Baptist Witness: Dear Sir, My wife passed me a link to the page on your website carrying an article about whether Southern Baptists should support the One campaign. Having read the article, I felt compelled to respond due to a number of inaccuracies it contained, as well as the presentation of a particular brand of economic thought as though it were beyond dispute. ...

Demian Turner’s review reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write a recommendation for Matt Zandstra’s " PHP 5 Objects, Patterns, and Practice" for a few weeks now. While many of the ‘design patterns’ books I’ve read have been able to impart their core concepts, none has really worked for me in the way Matt’s did. In part that’s because it is the first one I’ve read that’s exclusively PHP-focussed. While I enjoy python more than PHP, PHP tends to be the language I default to due to its familiarity. Matt draws from the example of other languages, but clearly identifies what marks PHP out as a language and applies his techniques appropriately. ...

It’s been a while since I wrote anything here, and I’m unlikely to return to regular posting for a while, but there are a few things that deserve some attention. Unfortunately my work schedule and a few more urgent voluntary projects have pulled me away from working on the Atom/RSS parser I wrote about recently, but I have done a little tinkering and hope to return to it before long. The next big change will be pulling each feed type out into its own class to make the package more easily extensible, and at that point I hope to propose it for inclusion in PEAR. ...

As a few entries in the run-up to the G8 summit hinted, I’ve been spending a lot of time lately considering the place of pragmatism in campaigning. Any campaign that seeks to make a quick impact is almost certain to have to make major compromises in order to get attention and drive action without the time to affect a fundamental change in mindsets. In the case of the Make Poverty History and One campaigns those compromises have been front-and-center. From the outset Make Poverty History was accused of being too close to Blair’s government, a closeness that has allowed them to be deeply involved in the discussions leading up to this year’s G8 summit, but which necessitates a muted agenda. ...

Obviously attention has been elsewhere most of the day, but in between London-related blog postings I’ve been reading AfricaVox, a group blog bringing together a number of African journalists who are in the UK for the G8 summit. So far it’s a little light on analysis, but even the slightly different perspective is useful while trying to work out what to make of the summit’s proceedings.

Sufjan Steven’s second installment in his ‘states’ series of albums, Illinoise, was supposed to be released today, but unfortunately due to some legal complications it’s been delayed until they can produce new sleeve art. But never fear! Independent radio producers Dan Collison and Elizabeth Meister were curious about how Stevens writes his songs, which, much like their own work, are filled with stories of places and people. So, they introduced Stevens to the Arkansas town of Brinkley. ...

A letter sent to Sojourners in response to a piece in their latest Sojomail: I appreciated Adam Taylor’s rallying call (“The G8 and poverty: ‘Beyond empty symbolism’”) in your last issue, but feel that perhaps he overstates what we are likely to receive as an outcome of the summit. Hopefully we will get more progress on debt cancellation, some trade reform, and maybe there will even be movement on climate change, but we are not going to get “real justice and empowerment for the world’s most impoverished people.” ...

Surprise, surprise, there have been clashes between riot police and protestors in Edinburgh in advance of the G8 summit. The BBC have pictures, but if viewing them, it’s worth also checking out the reports at Indymedia.

A couple of weeks ago, the Guardian published a column by George Monbiot entitled " Bards of the Powerful." He accused Bono and Bob Geldof of legitimising the G8’s role in Africa through their cosy relationship with Bush and Blair. His column followed soon in the footsteps of news that criticism of those leaders (it’s never been clear whether that is merely over the Iraq war, or more generally) was to be forbidden at today’s Live 8 concerns. ...